Beyond the Headlines

American Yeshivish, Israeli Charedi, and Dati-Leumi

“Halacha Headlines” is an American yeshivish podcast which overall does a great job in pushing the envelope of discourse and broadening people’s intellectual horizons. The latest episode is titled “Modern Orthodox, Dati Leumi, and Charedi: Are the Differences Halachic or Hashkafic?” Host R. Ari Wasserman interviews R. Yitzchak Breitowitz and Jonathan Rosenblum, speaking for the charedi perspective (although they are both at the very liberal end of the charedi world, with Rosenblum being arguably even post-charedi), and R. Moshe Taragin representing the dati-leumi perspective.

It’s wonderful that they platformed moderate charedi voices and also a dati-leumi voice, and I think that this was a tremendous service to their audience. In fact, since the host was asking about the difference between American yeshivish and charedi, there’s one right there! No Israeli charedi talk show would interview a dati-leumi rav to listen to their perspective and try to understand it.

Now for the comments/ criticisms!

R. Wasserman asks R. Breitowitz and Jonathan Rosenblum to describe the primary characteristic of the dati-leumi world. They got it wrong, which I can’t blame them for, since they are not in that world! Likewise, R. Taragin erred in some of his descriptions of the charedi world, since he isn’t part of it. As someone who has lived in both worlds, allow me to explain.

R. Breitowitz and Rosenblum describe the Dati-Leumi sector as being primarily characterized by its ascribing religious significance to the State. This is a widespread perception by people in the yeshivish/ charedi world, but it is incorrect. That was perhaps something of great significance at the beginning of the state, and immediately after 1967, but it wasn’t so important to Mizrachi rabbinic leaders before the state, and it isn’t really so significant anymore. It plays very little role in the Dati-Leumi choice of lifestyle. And I certainly am not at all confident that the state is reishis tzmichas geulaseinu!

Rather, the primary characteristic of being Dati-Leumi is seeing oneself as part of the nation of Israel, with its concomitant obligations. There’s a war on, the lives of seven million Jews in Israel are under threat, we need a large army to defend ourselves, and thus everyone needs to share responsibility, since we are all brothers, as per Moshe Rabbeinu’s speech to the Bnei Gad and Bnei Reuven. And there’s likewise also an importance in everyone helping to strengthen the economy, for everyone’s benefit, rather than creating a system in which charedim are underemployed and are supported by everyone else without concern as to the effects on the economy and on everyone else.

This also relates to a point made by R. Taragin, about how chessed in the charedi world is primarily about things like g’machim, whereas chessed in the dati-leumi world is on a national scale, involving things like army service, which Rav Lichtenstein described as being most fundamentally about chessed (and see my post at https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/the-charedi-chessed-myth).

Likewise, the primary characteristic of charedi society is not the supremacy of learning Torah. That’s certainly an important characteristic, but not the primary one. After all, chassidic charedim (incidentally, I think a few times in the show there was confusion about the term chassidim versus charedim) do not believe in long-term full-time learning for men. And there’s plenty of people in the charedi community who learn a whole lot less Torah (and are less particular on halacha) than plenty of people in the dati-leumi community.

Rather, the primary characteristic of being charedi is being charedi - seeing oneself as separate from the rest of Am Yisrael. And thus, with very rare exceptions (who usually reflect unusual family backgrounds), they feel no need to serve in the IDF, even as the reservists are collapsing under the strain, or indeed to help out with the suffering of the reservists in any way. Not to do chessed, not to attend funerals, not to visit injured soldiers in hospitals. R. Dov Landau and R. Moshe Hillel Hirsch have been extremely clear about that. Nor do charedi leaders care about how their lifestyle impacts the economy and the lives of people outside the charedi community.

This likewise illustrates R. Taragin’s misunderstanding of the charedi community. He describes how his wife wanted to create a program for charedi girls to help reservist families, but it was opposed because the girls might be exposed to televisions in the homes. I do not believe that this was the main reason, though it may well have been a factor. From the charedi perspective, the lack of interest in attending soldiers’ funerals, or helping the families of reservists, is a feature, not a bug. Doing so would undermine the very separatism that powers charedi identity.

(Incidentally, this is why I strongly disagree with R. Taragin equating the importance of dati’im attending the funeral of the charedi boy run over by a bus during a charedi anti-draft riot with the importance of charedim attending the funerals of soldiers. Soldiers die as part of a huge sacrifice on behalf of everyone in Israel. The boy who run over was part of a protest against making any sacrifices to help others.)

There’s an astonishingly revealing video in which respected charedi political thinker Rivka Ravitz states that the core of being charedi is about being separate from everyone else. She further says that she doesn’t think this changed even after October 7th. She says that maybe at the very beginning there were a small number of charedim on the fringes who wanted to get involved and help, but that largely fizzled out. And, she says, as a charedi mother, she is happy about that!

These things are very hard for American Jews to stomach, and they prefer to live in denial. Because in America, there is an idea of achdus meaning all the Jews being together as part of one unit. But in Israel, everything is totally different. For charedim, the most important thing is to be separate from everyone else. And for the dati-leumi, achdus does not mean singing together and speaking nicely about each other, but rather sharing responsibility.

Again, I think it’s fantastic that Headlines is opening these conversations. But there’s a lot that people still need to learn and accept.